colours fade for you only (carry me slowly)
by Mia-Zeklos
Summary: "It's his smile that haunts her in the end, when everything else disappears; just his smile." POST-TROS.


**Notes: Though I'm only posting this here now, it was written less than a day after I first saw TROS. It's kind of a habit of mine (carried from a different fandom) to take a bond like this and stretch its codependency so far that the survivor eventually just melts away into it because they can't stand the loss. The narrative itself certainly helped by having Rey lose Ben and then immediately exile herself away to Tatooine, so here we are. The title is taken from Hozier's _Sunlight_, due to how well it fits the whole mood.**

**I hope you enjoy it and feedback is always welcome!**

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It's his smile that haunts her in the end, when everything else disappears; just his smile.

It's what Rey thinks about when her world narrows down to the endless, lifeless stretch of desert – the only person she'd left behind involuntarily. With everyone else, it had been easy. She'd said her goodbyes and explained her reasons away and had then turned her back to it all, but she'd at least been given a choice.

She hadn't had one with Ben. He'd taken that choice away gladly, had held her in his arms and had then left her, the ghost of his joy clinging to every bit of her long after the fact.

Months and month later, in the desolation of Tatooine, it's still the only thing she sees when she closes her eyes. It's a strange thing, mourning and loving a man that had barely had the time to live at all, but it's all he'd left her with. She had hoped to see him too – the rest of his family had already shown themselves to her – but he's yet to appear. It occurs to her, after some time, that it might be her fault. His life had been handed to her and perhaps he can't ever truly leave while she remains, but there's not much to be done about it. She takes to trying to force the bond into motion once again, if only to give herself some peace, but all it does is drive her back to her own mind. It only serves to make her angrier – if that's where he is, he might as well let her _know_. In the nothingness that surrounds her, it's the only way out that she can think of. Going back to the rest of the world is unconceivable now, despite the fact that it would welcome her with open arms, and she had come here to be alone.

She had felt just as blissfully alone with _him_ too, all the more so before the end. They had been one back then. Now, without him, it's a different sort of loneliness, visceral and sharp and unbearable as id she's missing a limb while she can still feel it being severed. It's so constant that Rey learns to live despite it (through it, on her worse days), but it never leaves. She turns to the Force for help on occasion, but even that can't help her now. It's the Force that her given her this and it can't take it away now; not even after it had taken Ben himself away.

Still, something changes. She dreams of him – them, really, a chest full of memories etched into her mind – more often than before. It's quite an accomplishment with how often her thought had accompanied her to sleep before and it leaves her weak and tired in the mornings, as confused as he had made her when he'd still been alive.

How fitting, to think that he had followed her here. He would have followed her anywhere.

"There were so many things I wanted to know," she says to him one night. They're in that great, half-collapsed hall again and Ben's warm hold around her makes her far more comfortable than she ought to be. She can't quite feel the touch, just his presence, and it's enough to nearly drive her mad. "So many things I wanted _you_ to know."

"I know." When he looks at her like this, eyes bright, face lighting up when she meets his gaze, Rey can't bring herself to look away. "We could have had all the time in the world and it still wouldn't have been enough for all your questions."

He's right, of course, though it doesn't make anything easier to bear. Being able to speak to him outside of her dreams might have done so – she could have touched him again, seen him in her own world for once, done _something_—

"You can't." One of his hands leaver her in order to brush over her face instead, mapping out her features with his fingertips. The proximity feels like breeze caressing her skin, gentle and comforting and gone in an instant, and Rey's eyes slide shut. "There isn't anything you can do. Stay alive." He cards his fingers through her hair and she looks at him again, blinking furiously to chase away the pressure behind her eyelids. She, at least, is still breathing; she can go wherever and whenever she wants and carry him with her. He wouldn't be given the same freedom until after her death. "I'll be there."

When she wakes, it's still dark outside and her pillow is stained with the tears she hadn't allowed herself to shed. For a moment, between one heartbeat and the next, he's there, staring right back as Rey surges up to a sitting position in her cote, frantically examining the room to make sure it hadn't lasted.

She's alone, of course. The realisation stings almost as much as the loss had – back then, she'd known better than to hope. As it seems, that ability is lost to her as well.

Rey picks up meditation again the same day.

~.~

"What does it feel like?"

"I don't know. Unfamiliar." Rey shrugs, somewhat mystified by Ben's sudden interest in her life outside of their meetings. It's almost as painfully uneventful as his own and there's not much to share, but she'd done so anyway once something had changed, more likely in her than her surroundings. "Strange."

"Strange." His dismissive scoff might have riled her up, in a different life. She barely finds it in herself to glare at him now. There's not much she finds the strength for, truly, and it's yet another part of the problem she'd shared. "How so?"

"Faded. Not that there's much colour on Tatooine to begin with, but it's as if it's shrinking in on itself." Recalling the sensation alone makes her feel a little helpless; a little more absent. There had been other things – she hadn't felt the need to eat or drink a single thing in some time. It's difficult to say how long it's been with the way days melt into nights and back again, but it's enough for her to know that he would have found it strange if she'd shared it. Rey carefully tucks the thought away. "It's not _bad_. I'm not worried, just— confused. No one I've met has mentioned anything, so I know it's just me." Not that she'd had many visitors to begin with. The last time she had seen another person— well, it's certainly been _a while_. It's as accurate as any of her measurements of time get these days. "It's like the world is going out of focus."

"Don't let it." There's something uneasy about him now, but it's not particularly unexpected – _uneasy_ is one of the words she would readily use to describe Ben Solo. It's barely noticeable with the amount of fidgeting he does and the way his eyes constantly wander around whatever space they find themselves in, but it's precisely the kind of restless energy Rey would have expected from him. "I might have helped if I could see through your eyes."

"You did manage it one time."

"You were stronger then. Whatever this is," he reaches out and this time, she can just about feel it the way she once had, more a wave than a breeze, "fight through it. Leave this planet if you have to. It might change things if you go home."

When she returns the touch, the ghost of her fingers over his own casts a shadow under the faded sunlight in a way it never had before. She had always hoped that he would grow strong enough, whole enough, to be fully himself once again and the change, small as it is, thrills her enough for her to cast aside her own lapse into unexpected weakness. What use is worrying? It's his life that she's living now and it's a more precious gift than anything she could have ever received. He'd never once asked for anything in return, apart from having her use it to its limits.

The knowledge of it doesn't change much at all.

"I'm as close to home as I'm ever going to get."

~.~

The world is bright enough to blind her once she falls asleep.

It's a startling notion – after weeks and weeks of everything growing duller by the minute to match her growing indifference to it all, Rey had got used to drifting in and out of a seemingly uncaring universe without much change. Even her visions had left her in the past few days, taking with them her only, painfully sharp splash of colour that the bond had provided. Every sensation is amplified too, as if she'd finally been healed. The dreams had brought that same change every time, but it feels different now; permanent in a way that hadn't seemed possible before.

It takes her a moment to recognise the place of their meeting this time. _Takodana_. In the rare moments she'd had the time to think of death, Rey had rather hoped that the aftermath of it could take her to a place like this; one bursting with life. After such a long time spent sending fervent prayers for either an answer or a solution or a way to spend even less time in her own body than she already had, the Force had finally listened. It's enough to make her giddy. _If this is what death is like, no one would have ever tried to evade it_.

"It's nothing like this for the rest of the galaxy, I suspect." And there he is, when she spins on her heel at the sound of his voice, the sight of Ben leaning against a nearby tree right before he strides through the distance between them turning her smile even wider. "I did wonder where you would take us when the time came."

"I hadn't really thought about it before." It had all started here and if getting it back means losing a different life, then it's not difficult to imagine that she'd made the deal without a second thought. "It's good enough for us."

It's not a question, she realises once the space between their minds opens fully, letting him in farther than either of them had reached before. He's right here, not a ghost or a vision or a distant ray of hope and dread wrapped into one, and when Ben's fingers intertwine with her own, solid and as warm as she had always imagined they would be, she's finally home.


End file.
